Soap Operas for the ‘20s
Our Soap Operas for the ‘20s
When I was a kid, my babysitter watched all soaps on ABC. So I watched them, too. As I got older, I would watch them on school breaks and when I was home, sick. All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital.
Some of my relatives, great aunts (sisters of my maternal grandmother) watched the Young and the Restless on CBS. In fact, the last time I saw one of them, she was so anxious to get back to her show that she barely had time to say “hi” to me.
I was thinking today about being 65 and not having interest in watching the soaps that are left. Which led me to realize that since the rise of Trump and the MAGA crowd, politics have taken over the space in my brain that soaps used to occupy.
Instead of the ABC soaps versus the CBS soaps, it’s Fox News versus MSNBC.
Politics in America today has the big and small villains, and big and small heroes, all seen through the lens of the political bent of the beholder.
The plots are repetitious, with occasional surprises, like George Santos. No one saw him coming — a pathological liar worthy of the best of the soaps. The Mitt Romney scolding of Santos, caught on camera right before the State of the Union speech — a classic soap moment.
There is a science fiction aspect to the political scene, too. On team MSNBC where I live, the hosts occasionally refer to their/our world as Earth One, and the Trumpy followers as living on Earth Two. And when you hear about space lasers, microchips in vaccines, and denial of election results (at a terrible cost), it is easy to imagine we are living on different planets.
Since I have always loved science fiction, politics today really fill two slots in my brain — soapy drama with a side of Twilight Zone.